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In outer space, a probe picks up an audio transmission, and a radar technician and his assistant track the weak signal to a moon, LV 426. They send two astronauts, Frank and John, to investigate. As the astronauts lift off, the radar workers burst into laughter over the mission they have sent the pair on.

On LV 426, there is a crashed ship, with two human skeletons and two robots nearby. The robots, Robert and Iain, are bored, having had nothing to do but play Travel Scrabble since the ship crashed 3,123 years prior. When Iain sees Frank and John's ship landing nearby, he is excited by the prospect of rescue and runs in its direction. John mistakes the robots for aliens and shoots them. When the astronauts reach the wrecked ship, they uncover a radio blaring music. John reads "1710" on the radio's screen and throws it to Frank for a look, when the pair are suddenly teleported.

Frank and John appear on a pirate ship. John realises that the radio is a time machine that has brought them to the year 1710, and notices that it now reads 1920. When the pirates notice the intruders, they capture Frank as John escapes, and John throws the time machine into Frank's hands. Frank is teleported to 1920, but does not see John. He enters a store searching for John and, on the way out, is hit by a swerving car being driven by John, who is thrown through the windscreen.

The bodies of John and Frank and teleported through time and become the bodies that were at the shipwreck on LV 426. A probe picks up the audio transmission from the time machine, and the radar technician begins to look into it.[2]